Horace Pippin (1888-1946)

Horace Pippin, Christmas Morning Breakfast, 1945
Horace Pippin in 1940Horace Pippin was an American naive painter, known for his depictions of African American life and the horrors of war. Pippin’s childhood was spent in Goshen, New York, a town that sometimes appears in his paintings. Pippin was wounded in WWI, and was discharged with a partially paralyzed right arm. He settled in Pennsylvania--and was “discovered” by the art world in 1937. Pippin’s later works are precise and boldly colored. He’s an excellent example of genre painting at its best--which refers to paintings that depict everyday people doing everyday things. Read more about Horace Pippin at the NGA Classroom for Student and Teachers.

